J. Mitchell Lane

Most people who know me can probably tell you that I hate sleep. I just don’t like it. I think it’s a huge waste of time, and I get incredibly frustrated by how much less I can do because of its hold on me. Just imagine all that you could do if you didn’t have to take a mandatory 6-8 hour break every 16 hours or so.

But then come times like this past month when sleep suddenly stops trying to win me over, and doesn’t want to talk to me anymore. There are times when I try to enjoy the break that sleep can offer. Those wonderful times when I don’t dream, those times when I spend six hours completely unconscious and thinking nothing are amazing, but even that’s something that I can’t do anymore. I think I have talked to myself too many times about how worthless sleep is, and my brain finally believes that it isn’t necessary. It now tries to fill that gap with problem solving.

I don’t have normal dreams. I don’t dream about puppies or flying or fluffy pillows. My dreams turn out to be six to eight hours of me thinking and trying to figure out something that I couldn’t figure out that day, or hours of obsessing over something that I wouldn’t think about for more than five minutes during any time when I’m awake…. but, since I’m asleep, my brain will get confused and spend that time circling around the solution to a problem that I don’t even have. That makes me wake up angry with myself that I couldn’t figure it out, and even more tired than I was when I first fell asleep. Never-mind that the problem I was trying to solve didn’t even exist.

So then I’ll spend the day working on things that actually do need working on, and I’ll get ‘tired’, feel like sleep is calling me to it, and I try to go to bed… but once I’m there, it plays a dirty trick and leaves me tossing and turning in my bed caught half-way between my wake-full thinking and my dream-filled ‘problem solving’, which leaves me even more confused about whatever problem I’m trying to solve until two or three hours after I ‘wake up’ when I realize that I solved that issue yesterday. It may not even be a specific issue, but more of a conglomeration of whatever my brain thinks I need to think about, and so it’s completely worthless think-sleep that lasts all night.

If anyone knows the secret to turning off a brain, I would be happy to hear you out.

I usually think that sleep is worthless, but I don’t realize how worthless I am without it until it decides it wants to keep me halfway between blissfull unconsciousness and productivity. It made me spend five hours the other night (while I was ‘asleep’) trying to translate “καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος” when I already knew what it meant.

Oh, Brain, if you would just realize that you can spend that time with real thoughts. Please stop attempting to make yourself feel better by trying to solve non-existent Problems.

Oh, Sleep, I am sorry that I offended you. I might be willing to take back what I said if you would let Brain turn off once again.

Oh, Problems, you don’t exist. Stop confusing Brain.

And, Mind, you do need sleep. Stop telling Brain that you don’t. You are not as self-sufficient as you think you are. If you could focus on what really is beneficial, you wouldn’t need to convince Brain that you need those eight extra hours. It’s all in the attitude =)

P.S. Days, if you could be eight hours longer, I would be very happy with you.